Anekdota és referencialitás Kemény János önéletírásában

Abstract

The autobiography of János Kemény is usually valued more as a historical document than as a literary text. From this perspective have posterity read both the genealogy and the narrative part of the text, both abundant in detailed descriptions and anecdotes. Contrasting these anecdotes with other historical sources reveals that most of the stories have no referential value. In my paper I made an attempt to analyze the memoir from a narratological perspective focusing on the role of the anecdotes, short epic forms and images inserted into the main thread of the autobiographical narrative. These digressions, whether epic or descriptive, always dislocate the perspective of the narration, functioning as comments, glosses to it. In consequence, we can assess that the digressions are rather indirect reflections of the narrator on the mentioned events than objective representations (often originating probably from the oral tradition), thus they require a non-referential way of reading.